


Companions

by r_lee



Category: Dragon Age
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-14
Updated: 2012-06-14
Packaged: 2017-11-07 17:03:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/433422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/r_lee/pseuds/r_lee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wynne tells a story.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Companions

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Andraste](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Andraste/gifts).



> Set between _Awakening_ and _Dragon Age 2._ Many thanks to my wonderful beta.

“I’ll just stand here and look ornamental, shall I? The crystals don’t make me look wider than I already am?” Shale’s deep voice boomed, echoing off the surrounding hills, nowhere near drowned out by the crackling of flames.

“Fuss, fuss, fuss, I don’t understand what all the complaining is about. You look lovely. Lovely.” With a small but unobtrusive shrug, Merrill crossed her legs and gazed up at the huge stone golem with eyes so big and wide they might have contained whole universes.

“That’s easy for the painted elf to say.” Still, Shale held still. With one hand up, she lit the dark shadows of their small camp like a beacon. “Is it going to do something, or should I go slay things with feathers while I wait?”

“If by ‘it’ you mean your favorite eld— fussy mage, then yes, Shale. I will most assuredly do _something_ , as soon as our friend returns. You don’t have to stand there like a statue, you know.” Oh, Maker, she was tired, but not as tired as she’d been during the battle with the Archdemon. That had been quite the thing, and would in days to come be quite the tale to tell. When that thing, that frightful and wordless monstrosity had finally fallen at the hands of the Grey Wardens, she...

But no, those thoughts would have to wait. A distant wind moved through the tree branches; Wynne’s eyes narrowed as she looked off toward the horizon. She had lived a good number of years and despite the aching in her bones and the sorrow in her heart over the many deaths she’d witnessed, the many she’d caused, and her own personal losses — where was her son now? Who had he become? — she hoped to live a good number of years still. Life, she had found, was addictive.

Merrill had taken a shining to her from the start. On the way to rejoin her clan after procuring a piece of a missing artifact, they’d stumbled across one another in the forest. How fortuitous, Wynne remembered thinking on a day when having Shale as her sole companion had proved challenging, and the three of them had agreed to work their way north together. Three people together was always a safer bet than one or even two alone, even though there was no denying that Shale made a formidable traveling companion. She’d been remarkable on the rooftop at Fort Drakon, simply...

“I hear someone. Moving through the forest.” Immediately Merrill sprang to her feet, light as the leaves themselves and quick to take her stance with her staff at the ready. Two mages and a golem. They weren’t encountering many Darkspawn stragglers, but those unfortunate enough to cross their path had met swift ends. In her heart, Wynne knew that these hurlocks and genlocks and shades and ogres were merely the twisted representation of those she knew and loved. They’d been spawned, not born, and killing them was a mercy worthy of Andraste herself. Still, she paused and noticed that at the first sound of movement Shale had stopped frowning at the birds in the trees above and stood watchful.

“It’s me, it’s me.” A firm voice rang out as small measured steps, heavier for the armor she wore, grew closer. Shale relaxed, for a measure of a stone being relaxing, and Merrill aimed her staff toward the ground. The Legionnaire ran into the clearing, hands on her knees, panting.

“Did the painted dwarf find sustenance?”

“I bring food for all.” Sigrun unrolled a pack beneath her arm: loaves of bread, still fairly fresh (“that’s why I was running so hard”) along with wedges of cheese and a sampling of fresh fruit, nuts, and berries.

“Hmph. Adequate for the squishy ones, but nothing fit for a golem.” Shale exhaled, disappointed. She _always_ sounded disappointed.

Sigrun let out a hearty laugh. “No, Shale, for you I brought pigeons. An entire flock.” For a moment the stern expression on her face didn’t waver, but she couldn’t fight the grin for long. “Just a joke. I did find something for you, though! A present.”

“A new control rod, perhaps?”

“Always the skeptic.” Wynne broke off an end of bread, helped herself to a small wedge of cheese. “Thank you, Sigrun. Doubtless whatever you brought for Shale will be perfectly lovely.” She shook out a blanket, laid it down, and took a seat. Oh, her bones ached, but that was the price of adventure, she supposed.

Merrill joined her, cracking open a nut between two rocks. “What is it you’ve brought for Shale?”

Through the ink on her face, Sigrun beamed. “On my way to the village, I found what looked like a pile of rubble. Rocks, I’m used to those, and followed their path. It was an abandoned entrance to a hidden cache. I found these.” Opening her pack, she drew out handfuls of crystals: orange, green, blue, white. Even in the encroaching darkness, they glowed like embers from a fire. “From one dwarf to her favorite former dwarf.”

“It brought these for me? How thoughtful of it.” Shale eyed the crystals with her usual disdain, although it was hard to read disdain into those rocky features of hers. Still, after traveling together for so long, Wynne knew well enough how to read the golem’s reactions. The moment they’d met Sigrun, with her tales of the Deep Roads and the Darkspawn army her party had destroyed at Kal’Hirol, Shale and the dwarf had forged an instant friendship. It only seemed a begrudging one on Shale’s part, and Wynne didn’t believe for a moment that any part of it was false. Both women were dwarves, both knew the Deep Roads and the history of the thaigs, and both were, well — to put it bluntly — lonely. They were all lonely, although they’d all chosen their own paths.

“Eating, Sigrun?” Merrill portioned everything out evenly; she liked to do things the fair way and had put herself in charge of their little party’s commodities from the start.

“Yes, yes.” Apologetically, she set the crystals aside. “We’ll try them out on you in a little while, Shale.”

“Shall I just stand here and hold the crystals? Provide light for it while it consumes more soft and squishy things?”

“Don’t be a pill, Shale, or I’ll keep them for myself.” Sigrun grinned, took her seat on the blanket, but ate wolfishly. It was clear she had better things to do and once she was done, she took up residence on a nearby tree stump, crystals in tow, and began placing them just so, here and there, on Shale. “Who says they all have to match? Tonight, let’s place them in patterns. Did you know each thaig has its own sigil? I’m arranging your crystals in the shape of the sigil of Cadash Thaig tonight.” Her pause was only momentary. “Mostly green crystals, because Cadash is so verdant. It looks perfect on you.”

“Flatterer.” Shale sounded immensely pleased and if Wynne wasn’t wrong, she thought she detected a hint of smile in that booming resonant voice. How awful it must have been, frozen in place in that village square in Honnleath for years and years, trapped inside an unmoving body, unable to so much as flick away a single pigeon.

Wait, she’d never had any argument with pigeons. No matter, though. At her side, Merrill looked entirely content. She had never divulged the contents of her pack, never mentioned what kind of artifact it was she’d been reconstructing, but that was really only her business and everyone had secrets. Everyone.

“Look at them. Like sisters, they’re so happy.” Merrill let out a little sigh. “I don’t think my own clansmen like me very much.”

“Nonsense.” Wynne had no idea whether or not that was true, but she could hardly imagine it a falsehood. “You’re eminently likeable, Merrill.”

“Why are you so nice to me? We’ve just met, not so very long ago, and you don’t ask me questions and you don’t judge. And unlike her” — she nodded toward Shale — “you don’t threaten.” She curled up on the blanket, catlike, and blinked up with eyes brighter than they had any call to be.

Wynne paused. With her last group of travelers she’d been propositioned, ridiculed, taunted, argued with, driven to the point of distraction, mocked, ignored... but she had been loved, of that she was certain. In their own way, each and every one of the party members had treated her as a valued member of their group, and that had been an unexpected lesson. She’d been offered the position of First Enchanter at the Circle Tower at Lake Calenhad, but that was not the path she wanted to take. She liked teaching. She liked being of value. She liked passing along information, and never did it for the approval of her peers or even for the approval of her superiors, real or imagined. In her time, she had learned that it was always best to simply speak one’s truth. If any consequences were to be suffered from that, they would follow.

“If I’m nice to you, or to Shale or to Sigrun or to a passerby on the road, it is because I either like you or them or because it’s the right thing to do, Merrill. I try to reserve my judgment for those who ask for it.”

Merrill fiddled with a blade of grass. “I wish more people were like that. So many are so quick to tell everyone else what they ought to do and how to do it.”

“That may be.” Wynne nodded. “But in the end, there is only person we have to face: our own self. When the time comes, that is the one to whom we’ll have to justify our actions.” Visions of the Archdemon swam through her head, of the final battle, of the sacrifice one she had judged so harshly made in his final moment. Redemption? Perhaps, but beyond that she believed that Loghain had done the deed because it was his _duty._ Because that was the job of the Grey Wardens: to defend others from the Darkspawn and to take losses so others need not do the same. For better or for worse, it was what they did, and what they’d done since time immemorial.

“It is not up to me to judge.” She glanced at Sigrun, setting crystals in order on Shale’s rocky form, listened to the low laugh of approval from the golem, thought about the demands made on members of the Legion of the Dead. She wondered what it was that made Merrill believe she was so unpopular with her own people but refused to ask: if Merrill wanted to tell her, she would and if she didn’t want to, that was her business alone. She thought about her own voyage: about how she’d been as impetuous as anybody, how she’d flaunted the rules, how she’d birthed and lost a son, how no day went by when she didn’t wonder about him, how she’d chosen to stay to defend the Tower when blood magic and abominations overtook it, and how she’d joined the Warden’s party because she knew her time was growing short and she needed to experience as much as possible before the day she entered the Fade for good.

“I have found love and acceptance and dare I say faith in places I did not expect, and you will, too. You’re a good woman with a kind heart, and kindness and goodness always prevail.” Reaching over, she stroked Merrill’s hair. “In my time with the Wardens, I learned a great many things. Come, child. Shall I tell you a story?”

“You’d do that for me? Really?” Merrill smiled, and the smile lit her face. “Oh, I would love that. What’s it about?”

“The Grey Wardens. It is a tale about no battle the Wardens have ever fought, but it is a tale about them all.” A smile creased her face and by the light of the crystals, she relaxed. “A story from long ago, when a huge Darkspawn horde roamed the world and the Wardens were burdened with saving Thedas from the Archdemon for the good of all people and all races. When courage seemed to fail and the only thing standing between the Blight and the survival of man and elves and dwarves and Qunari were the Wardens. About _their_ strength and courage, and how it was passed along unknowingly to countless thousands of others.”

“Oh!” Merrill sat up and bounced like a little child. “I heard once that the Grey Wardens of old rode in on snow-white griffons. Does this story have griffons in it?”

Atop the tree stump, Sigrun paused, crystal in hand, listening avidly.

“Yes,” chimed in Shale. “Tell us a story about huge flying feathered things. They’re my favorite kind. I like the popping sound their heads make when they’re squished.”

Maker preserve us all, thought Wynne, _griffons._ Here we go again.


End file.
